Anybody come across wood that never dries

[Travishall]

Just read this and never heard it before

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[mark cline]

Seems like the article is talking about rounds or logs left in the forest , no mention if it was split. I would think if its split it would dry.

 

[Easy Livin’ 3000]

Just read this and never heard it beforeView attachment 239596View attachment 239597

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Yep. Have some ash just like described on the page.

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

Yup. Great book by the way.

A few years ago we burned some oak that we had split and stacked over 15 years ago. It had sat behind a shed, under a tarp cover with open sides. It stayed damp for years but not so much that it visibly rotted. When I burned it, internal moisture showed about 20%. It sat like a rock in the stove until just turning to coal and ash. It didnt look rotten and it was still relatively heavy. Wouldn't burn actively though.

 

[Dataman]

Yes. Coconut Trees. Just Juicy Fibers. U can't burn them without lots of time in big fire. Even then...

 

[rwhite]

Grand Fir. If left outside it seems to rot and become punky and perpetually wet. Inside it will season. Not much heat but usable.

 

[Alpine1]

Nice book, I read it a few years ago. Where I live, no one cuts a tree for firewood if the moon isn’t on the wane, otherwise you’d have “never burning” wood. I tried to cut a couple trees with a waxing moon, and got moldy sticks in the pile... nothing scientific but since then, i uniformed my cutting habits to tradition.

 

[Sawset]

I'm wondering if latitude and species has something to do with it. Hemlock, fir, spruce, birch? I don't seem to see it. And there has been a lot of wood here left in the woods to rot, and later picked up and dried, in all stages, dropped green or dead, all seasons. But there are none of those types of trees here, spruce etc. Do the Alps in Italy also have those north latitude trees?

 

[SpaceBus]

Nice book, I read it a few years ago. Where I live, no one cuts a tree for firewood if the moon isn’t on the wane, otherwise you’d have “never burning” wood. I tried to cut a couple trees with a waxing moon, and got moldy sticks in the pile... nothing scientific but since then, i uniformed my cutting habits to tradition.

You know, traditions do have a purpose sometimes, it was just never known or forgotten. I think I might do this as well, even though I broke up some sub 4" dead trees for kindling yesterday. I have some wood that's covered in a windy place and some has begun to rot inexplicably, you might be on to something.

 

[SpaceBus]

I'm wondering if latitude and species has something to do with it. Hemlock, fir, spruce, birch? I don't seem to see it. And there has been a lot of wood here left in the woods to rot, and later picked up and dried, in all stages, dropped green or dead, all seasons. But there are none of those types of trees here, spruce etc. Do the Alps in Italy also have those north latitude trees?

Birch will absolutely rot if you don't split it immediately. The thick bark will prevent moisture from escaping from the wood, and it will never dry. In fact you can find hollow bark stems from small dead birch trees in the forest. Native Americans used birch bark to make canoes and snowshoes.

 

[peakbagger]

FYI I usually chime in on white birches tendency to rot comes up so here I go again. There are a couple of reasons for white birch rounds rotting. When birches get old or stressed they rot on the stump standing up long after they are dead. The crowns die back and the rot starts quickly, working its way down the trunk. If there is any sign of die back in the crown, there is good likely hood that at least part of the tree is not worth cutting. I generally only cut birches with healthy crowns, if they are unhealthy and in the way I normally just drop them to get them out of the way as they frequently become hazard trees shedding large branches when disturbed. The other trick is if you dont have a chance to split them right away, just run your saw the length of the trunk cutting through the red inner bark. If its a big tree, run two cuts. This will buy you several months unless the tree already was starting to rot due to crown dieback. On occasion if the tree is up off the ground and its sits over the winter, water will get in the slot and freeze. In the spring I will find a debarked log with bark sitting under the log. Obviously its better to buck and split up front but I have used this slot method for years. I have one on my woodlot that I cut more than a year ago and the main trunk is completely bare and solid.

 

[Sawset]

There was a thread a while ago that talked about birch, and the fact that it rots easily, and that it would need to be either scored at the bark, or split, for it to keep, and preferable right away. I have the book mentioned, and also read through the posts on the thread. I looked for a way to somehow reference the books paragraphs in the thread. I couldn't. The author points out that the wood pores get clogged with bacteria and also the residue that they produce, and that moisure is then forever locked in place because of it. It's not so much rot, but more like contamination. Even burning in the stove is affected despite the moisture. Hmm.

 

[SpaceBus]

FYI I usually chime in on white birches tendency to rot comes up so here I go again. There are a couple of reasons for white birch rounds rotting. When birches get old or stressed they rot on the stump standing up long after they are dead. The crowns die back and the rot starts quickly, working its way down the trunk. If there is any sign of die back in the crown, there is good likely hood that at least part of the tree is not worth cutting. I generally only cut birches with healthy crowns, if they are unhealthy and in the way I normally just drop them to get them out of the way as they frequently become hazard trees shedding large branches when disturbed. The other trick is if you dont have a chance to split them right away, just run your saw the length of the trunk cutting through the red inner bark. If its a big tree, run two cuts. This will buy you several months unless the tree already was starting to rot due to crown dieback. On occasion if the tree is up off the ground and its sits over the winter, water will get in the slot and freeze. In the spring I will find a debarked log with bark sitting under the log. Obviously its better to buck and split up front but I have used this slot method for years. I have one on my woodlot that I cut more than a year ago and the main trunk is completely bare and solid.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[kennyp2339]

There is some truth to this with oak tree's, since the wood is a closed cell structure once felled if it starts drying out to fast (aka kiln fired drying) the cells will fully close off and trap the moisture within making it nearly impossible to dry out in a reasonable time frame. That's why people with kilns monitor there temps for the first part of the wood drying process

 

[Alpine1]

I'm wondering if latitude and species has something to do with it. Hemlock, fir, spruce, birch? I don't seem to see it. And there has been a lot of wood here left in the woods to rot, and later picked up and dried, in all stages, dropped green or dead, all seasons. But there are none of those types of trees here, spruce etc. Do the Alps in Italy also have those north latitude trees?

Yep, we have Norway spruce (picea abies), silver fir (abies alba), European larch (larix decidua), Austrian pine (pinus nigra), and other less common conifers, but we have birch, beech, ash, poplar and some oaks. But the vast majority of what I burn is Norway spruce. My “experiment” was with it,

 

[billb3]

I've cut quite a bit of dead standing red oak for a few years and every now and then you'll get a round or two out of a tree that just doesn't season. Always seems to be a crotch piece or near one. Stays heavy as a stone. You put it aside again and again even under cover and it just doesn't season. It doesn't rot, it's like it is stuck in time. You can try to burn it and it just smolders.

 

[baseroom]

Willow.....seems like it is a sponge that never gives up!

 

[XmasTreefarmer]

I just read Norwegian Wood - really enjoyed it. It was one of those books that I tried to slow down on because I knew I was going to miss it once I had finished it. It is more of a historical reference and a cultural reference than a "how-to" book. Pretty much anyone on Hearth.com would fit right in in Norway! They take their wood and heating with wood very seriously. I would not recommend it to anyone looking to learn how to process wood, burn a stove, etc. You will learn something for sure, but there are better resources if that's what you are after.

When I read that section on wood that won't dry I thought, "Ah ha!" It all suddenly made perfect sense. This is embarrassing, but I have had a bad habit of sometimes cutting wood and then stacking it up off the ground (sometimes in rounds, sometimes split) with the most sincere intent of coming back to get it out of the woods and properly stacked. My excuse it that there is always something else that comes to the forefront on the farm and I don't get back to it.

Well ... I always do get back to it eventually and sometimes that wood is not in good shape. Being in the woods it's shaded, somewhat out of the wind, and in a high humidity area. I get it out of there and get it property stacked, but have noticed that it does not dry like freshly cut, split, and stacked wood! I have observed this because sometimes I will get some fresh cut and split wood in those stacks. I can tell that wood because it is lighter colored on the ends. If I check some splits from a stack, those will be lower moisture content than the other splits which may have been stacked a year or two longer! The description in the book is very clear as to what happens inside the wood and it makes good biological sense. The bacteria and fungi that invade the wood and begin to break it down need moisture. Their works stops or slows if the wood dries out. So, they have evolved mechanisms to prevent/slow the loss of water from the wood. Eureka!

In my experience, it's clearly important to get that wood CSS in a good drying location so that the drying process can start before the decomposers can get to work in there. That might be species dependent, I can's say for sure, so I'm just treating all of my wood that way.